


had a vision of you burning on my mind

by blackwood (transjon)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Developing Relationship, Kissing, Love, M/M, Melancholy, Sharing a Bed, accidental use of the beholding, post-159
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:07:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22594528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transjon/pseuds/blackwood
Summary: He’s thinking about Martin driving down the dirt road towards the intersection where dirt turns into asphalt, one hand steady on the wheel, the other leaning against the door. Patient and quiet. Maybe he’ll listen to the radio. Maybe he’ll listen to his own music.In these thoughts he’s always there with him, sitting to the left of him, looking out the window looking for cows or sheep or horses out in the fields, eager to point them out or just describe them if Martin doesn’t want to take his eyes off the road. Or looking slightly to the left of him, singing along to whatever song comes on. He always knows the lyrics to the songs that come on, in these thoughts.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 15
Kudos: 199





	had a vision of you burning on my mind

**Author's Note:**

> title is from going to scotland by the mountain goats, maybe a little on the nose but, its so good

In Scotland there’s finally silence. 

For the most part, at least. It doesn’t rain hard most days, but when it does Jon almost wants to cup his hands to his ears to block it out. It’s not like it’s any louder than in London, but without the drone of the city noise it bounces off the roof and the walls coming down diagonally and resonates in his eardrums like repeating gun shots. It’s taking a while to get used to it.

Martin doesn’t seem to care. These days he carries himself like he’s aged several years past his chronological age. Jon supposes that’s fair - he’s not exactly in the best shape himself, but it makes him feel some sort of way anyway. 

It rains hard and long, fat raindrops making the trees rustle, wind swaying the streetlamps in the far distance. Jon sits in the window and wonders if the rain has always sounded like this, if it has always come down in lashes. Like filling up a bathtub, water splashing everywhere before settling across the bottom to soften the landing. 

Martin’s stopped offering him tea. These days he just makes him cups of tea and hands them over wordlessly. Jon doesn’t decline them. They sit by the window together and Jon looks out the window into the rain and Martin plays with his own hands or writes in his little notebook. Their respective cups of tea get cold most of the time. It doesn’t matter much. 

There’s two beds, technically, but one of them is rickety and narrow and uncomfortable, obviously something Daisy had just ended up with and not known what to do with other than keep just in case she ever needed it, and when Martin, lying on his back with his eyes closed, opens his arms, just barely, Jon crawls into the larger, more comfortable one with him readily and without thinking. They don’t really hold each other, but Martin nestles against him gently, fingertip to shoulder blade. It feels safe. Safer, at least. 

Eventually the rain stops. The air comes in through the window smelling of mud. Jon breathes in, out, in again. Against his back Martin starts to snore softly.

–

Martin comes in with a see-through plastic shopping bag full of sandwiches and a sandwich bag full of rocks.

“Lake rocks,” he says, kicking his shoes off and shaking the bag to make the rocks rattle together, “I thought they looked nice.”

Jon looks at him for a long second. There’s something building in his chest, deep affection, some kind of all-consuming desperation. Martin is still all human. He thinks, maybe there’s another explanation for this - something deeper. More than aesthetics. He thinks – it would be so easy to figure him out, just take a look, just a little deeper. Dip his toes in a bit. 

Martin notices the pause. His face falls just a little bit.

“Did you...?” he asks, quietly. Jon shakes his head, hard.

“I was thinking about it. I didn’t.” No use lying to Martin about it. 

“I wish you’d just believe what people say without looking too much into it.” 

Jon wishes it too. He _mm_ s quietly. Martin hands the rock filled sandwich bag over and pulls the sandwiches out of the shopping bag. Jon opens the sandwich bag and shoves his hand in without much thought. The rocks are damp and cool and irregularly shaped, and for just a moment he closes his eyes and just _feels_. A shudder travels up his spine. 

“Is this why?” Jon asks, eyes still closed. It feels really good to hold something solid.

“Not really,” Martin says, but his voice has an edge to it that says _maybe, partially_ rather than _you’re being silly_. Jon contemplates this. He almost feels like he’s touching the bottom of the lake they came out of, in a way, holding these rocks worn down by its relentless push and pull.

They sit at the rickety kitchen table and eat their shitty, soggy sandwiches Martin got from the convenience store on his walk and into the silence Jon says “we need to go buy actual food soon” and Martin laughs, goes “we _really_ do.” 

Affection flares in Jon’s chest, all the way down to his stomach. He’s thinking about Martin driving down the dirt road towards the intersection where dirt turns into asphalt, one hand steady on the wheel, the other leaning against the door. Patient and quiet. Maybe he’ll listen to the radio. Maybe he’ll listen to his own music. 

In these thoughts he’s always there with him, sitting to the left of him, looking out the window looking for cows or sheep or horses out in the fields, eager to point them out or just describe them if Martin doesn’t want to take his eyes off the road. Or looking slightly to the left of him, singing along to whatever song comes on. He always knows the lyrics to the songs that come on, in these thoughts. 

Martin, true to his implied promise, pours the rocks onto one of the more cracked plain white plates they’ve pulled from the cupboards and puts the whole thing on the stained coffee table that takes up most of the living room floor space. 

“There,” Jon says solemnly, “you’ve fixed this place. Good as new.”

“Oh, shut up,” goes Martin, but he’s smiling. Jon clings to that. That smile. Those eyes. Those deep circles under his eyes. 

Alive. Alive. Alive.

–

Days here are both so long and so short. And Jon feels so hungry sometimes - like he’s wasting away. He hopes Basira sends him statements soon. Or maybe Martin will be able to get some for him.

Martin can tell, too - he looks uneasy, sometimes, looking at him, his tired face. He’d started an offer once, the “I –” barely passing his lips before Jon had said “No,” quick and harsh. Martin had recoiled away physically, like he’d slapped him across the face. 

“No,” Jon had repeated, softer, apologetic, “no.” 

Martin hadn’t even bothered to ask that time. He didn’t tell him off for doing it either, just took it as a natural consequence. Some things best left unsaid. Some offers left unmade. 

“Okay,” he’d said. “I just – I worry about you, Jon.” 

And Jon knew that. He knows that. He thinks about it constantly, sitting on the couch, at the dining table, staring into nothing and picking at his food, something in his mind burning, stomach refusing to settle long enough for his human hunger to kick in. 

“I am going to force feed you,” Martin threatens, picking up his fork menacingly. The bottom of his styrofoam container is soaked all the way through with vinegar. Imagining how his chips must taste makes Jon want to suck in his lips in a scowl. 

“I’m trying,” Jon says instead. He keeps his voice even. Steady. He cuts a piece off of his fish. The breading falls off of the piece and back in with the rest of his barely touched meal. The fish makes it halfway to his mouth before he sets it back down. 

Martin sighs gently. “You’re human enough to still need to eat, I’m pretty sure.” 

“Thanks,” Jon mutters as a wave of actual nausea washes through him, “I know.” 

Martin looks at him with an unreadable expression in his eyes. Jon locks eyes with him, his own burning with feverish desperation.

“Sorry,” he says eventually. He picks up his fork again. 

“I know,” Martin says, softly, like he really does. Jon doesn’t need to read his mind to know he’s sorry too. 

He wishes he wasn’t. He always does.

–

Martin lures him out. It was a matter of time until he broke his promise to himself of isolating himself as well as he could out of fear of accidentally compelling someone into telling him something, but he still feels halfway between disgusted and relieved pulling on his shoes.

Martin doesn’t take him into the village. Jon’s brain burns with both relief and frustration when he realizes they’re not going that way, for just a second. Instead he leads him down the dirt road, and then down a side road, through a little patch of woods, and then he turns around to face Jon again, smiling with this look of almost unhinged joy. 

They look at the cows. Jon likes the one with a heart-shaped spot on her forehead, gingerly reaches forward to pet her. She doesn’t seem to mind, and when he gently scratches her on the middle of the heart-spot she firmly knocks her head into his hand. 

Martin taps him on the shoulder and quietly points out the one with a calf, the one he’s been talking about ever since he first spotted her, further away in almost the middle of the pasture. Jon nestles in closer to Martin to get a better look between and over the cows, gathered at the fence, hopeful for food or pats. Jon tries not to think too hard about the way Martin smells, so close to him, his arm loosely wrapped around Jon to allow him to stand closer. 

It’s beautiful. The grass is still green, the wind just barely warm, softly rustling the trees around them. 

In the distance, a brown and white cow gives her calf a few firm licks across the face and then puts her face down to graze.

–

Sometimes Martin comes back from his walks in a bad mood. Not angry, just – contemplative. Sad. He walks in the door and knocks his shoes against the floor in a way that’s probably deliberate.

Jon pats the space on the couch next to him. Martin slinks over and sits with his feet angled so that when he puts weight on them he slides off the couch until his feet come to lean against the coffee table. He’s tall enough that most of his back is still on the couch, neck at an odd angle against the cushions, shoulder shoved into Jon’s thigh. Jon wants so badly to pat him on the head. Martin sighs hard. They’re quiet for a moment, clock ticking away on the wall until Jon lets out a sigh of his own.

“You alright?” 

Martin shrugs. It’s awkward because of his position, and the motion jostles Jon slightly. 

“Should we talk about it?”

Martin thinks about it. “I’m not sure,” he says, carefully. Like he’s weighing the options. 

“Okay,” agrees Jon. 

A beat of silence. Martin closes his eyes.

“Should I ask?”

There’s a flash of _would this sate his hunger? Would this make him feel better? Would this count?_ in his head and he pushes it aside as hard as he can. No. No. No.

Martin is quiet for a while. “It’d be easier,” he says eventually, “but I don’t know if I want it to be.”

Jon nods. He doesn’t think Martin can feel it, but that doesn’t register until after he’s already done it. 

They sit in silence. Jon counts seconds, absently. Martin’s shoulder feels heavy and pointy against his thigh but he doesn’t have enough room to move away. He doesn’t know what Martin is thinking about and he isn’t going to know, unless he decides to tell him. His eyes are still closed. 

Eventually Martin takes a shuddering breath and rearranges his limbs so that he’s sitting on the couch properly. 

“I was thinking,” he says airily, “about my mother.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

Martin makes a noncommittal noise. Jon doesn’t know what to do with his hands so he folds them in his lap, feeling useless. 

“I don’t know.”

They sit in silence for another few minutes. 

“Do you want uh. Do you want a hug?” 

Martin finally looks at him, surprise on his face. Jon can feel his face get red-hot, suddenly embarrassed, but Martin nods slowly, and Jon opens his arms. There’s no tears when Martin wriggles into his arms awkwardly and Jon wraps his arms around him greedily, like he’s holding onto a raft in the middle of an ocean. 

Martin is solid. He craves anything solid, these days, anything present and heavy and real. They hold each other for what feels like hours and when Martin lets go he looks like he feels better. They have dinner. They talk about light topics. They talk about the Institute, but only a little bit. 

Martin doesn’t bring up his mother. Jon doesn’t ask. 

That night Jon wakes when it’s still dark, the moon clear in the sky. He gets up to close the curtains better, soft footsteps padding across the creaky wood floor, his head foggy. He takes a second to press his cheek against the glass. Cool. Soothing. Solid. He listens to the sound of steady breathing, the movement of air. There’s a thing in his throat about it. He fixes the curtains. 

In the bed under the thick duvet Martin makes a soft noise in his sleep. Jon looks over at him and aches for just a beat. Feels the thing in his throat grow, lodge itself firmly in place.

–

An unseasonably cold Saturday leaves them huddling in front of the cold fireplace, both too unsure in their skills to start a fire, duvets wrapped around their shoulders.

“Can you believe the insulation in this place?” Martin asks, audibly fed up. 

“Do you reckon Daisy built this shack from the ground up and figured not freezing to death in your sleep is optional?” Jon says in mock anger. 

Martin laughs softly at the absurdity of that, and the image of Daisy laying foundation, building a two story house, no matter how small. Her in old dungarees and oversized t-shirt, sneakers brown with mud, hammering in wood floors. It’s not impossible, he supposes. He can imagine her doing it now that he’s thinking about it. 

“It’s hardly a shack,” Martin says. 

He’s not wrong. It’s pretty good, all things considered. Electricity and semi-reliable plumbing and everything. 

“You’re right. We’re living it up. This is the height of luxury.”

Martin laughs again. It’s so good to hear that sound. Jon leans against him a little more heavily, and Martin wraps his arm around his shoulders, turning his body so he’s looking at the side of Jon’s face. Jon turns his own head. They don’t make eye contact. 

Jon notices that Martin has a single freckle on the tip of his nose. He wonders what Martin notices about him. His greying eyebrows, maybe. Hair fallen out in chunks in places where he’s been pulling on it over the past few months. Tired eyes and sharp cheekbones. Their eyes meet and suddenly Jon has an overwhelming, burning impulse to kiss him right on the mouth. 

Martin makes a sound of surprise and Jon thinks for a terrifying second that he’d said that out loud, but then Martin is grabbing his head, gentle but firm, and then he’s kissing him, and kissing and kissing and kissing –

–

They sleep. They have their own private dreams. Jon dreams of a monstrous eye taking up the entire sky and wakes up sweaty and anxious. Martin dreams of whatever he dreams about, he doesn’t know what, and he doesn’t ask.

They drive to the next town over. Martin turns on the radio. Jon doesn’t know any of the words, and there aren’t any animals out. It’s damp and misty. He looks at Martin and feels carsick. Hardly glamorous. 

The car park is empty. Jon stands next to Martin’s sensible, reliable sedan, hunched over, and dry heaves for a few minutes. Martin’s hand is on his back through it, not quite patting but grounding him nonetheless. He doesn’t throw up. Martin hands him a tissue and he wipes his mouth. They don’t hold hands on the way in.

“This might be the saddest Tesco I’ve ever seen,” Jon says mildly, scanning the picked over shelves and dirty floors. Martin makes a diplomatic _mm_ sound and chucks a loaf of clearance bread into the trolley. Jon slinks along. Martin picks out all sorts of things - rice, bread, croissants, spaghetti. Pasta sauce. Bananas. 

By the salad greens there’s a woman absently rocking a baby in her arms, and something in Jon’s brain starts singing longingly. She’s digging through the bags of prepackaged salads in search for the least wilted one, and Jon can’t stop looking. Martin picks up peppers and onions and tomatoes. Jon stands frozen in the spot and stares like a shark smelling blood, head buzzing. Martin walks back up to him, face a question mark.

“Can I,” he breathes out, finally. He feels like he’s going to keel over at the hunger, the temptation, the opportunity. He wants Martin to tell him yes. He wants him to tell him no. He doesn’t know what he wants.

“No,” Martin says, and grabs a casual hold of Jon’s shirt sleeve to tug him along with him.

He wheels them to the single self-checkout register and Jon shudders. Martin goes through the steps mechanically but with some hurry. He has Jon load the groceries into bags, and after paying he herds him out and into the carpark.

“You can do me,” he says in the car after they’ve loaded all the groceries in the boot of the car, clicking his seatbelt shut. “Ask me something. Make me tell you something. I have things you can pull out of me.”

Jon sucks on his lips with a wet whistling sound. “I don’t know, Martin.”

“Ask me about my mother.”

It’s not really a dare. It could be. 

Jon shakes his head. “No.”

“You’re not going to do it to some innocent stranger,” he says, and there’s bite to it.

“I could find someone who deserves it,” Jon mumbles, but he’s already deflating, the impulse fading the longer he goes without seeing her. “Someone who’s done something bad.”

“No,” Martin says, gentler. 

“No,” Jon agrees. Sighs. “No.”

They go home, and Jon doesn’t ask Martin about his mother, and Martin doesn’t offer again. They make dinner and Jon eats five bites and Martin looks at him and Jon looks back and wants so badly to have just _one_ statement or file or anything, and then Jon does the dishes while Martin scribbles in his notebook and then they sleep. 

For once, Jon doesn’t dream. At least he doesn’t remember if he does.

–

Martin finally gets the all-clear to visit the Institute. Jon slinks around the house and counts the cracks in the walls to pass time. He wishes he could get enough of a signal to call him. He misses him. It’d be good to just have the mutual, shared silence. Listening to Martin’s car radio together, not knowing any of the words to any of the songs, hearing the static while Martin curses the radio and tries to find another station. Anything. He’d take anything.

“If you’re good I might bring back statements,” he’d said. Obviously a joke, yet the promise of even that had filled him with desperate longing, and Martin had gotten this look of – something in his eyes. Not quite pity. Not quite fear. 

He walks around the little room, the little cabin, around the building, and thinks about his hunger. Not human enough to live, not human enough to die. Weird how that works. He takes a walk and just barely manages to not go into the village. He doesn’t quite trust himself. 

The cow with the heart shaped spot is waiting at the fence again. Jon pulls a fistful of dandelions from the ground and offers them to the cow. Palm flat, he remembers from when he was a kid and got to feed a horse, they can’t see their mouth and whatever you put within their reach they will try to eat. He’s pretty sure that applies to cows too. Heart spot cow eats the flowers greedily, without hesitation, slimy tongue dragging saliva all over Jon’s hand. He wonders what her name is. He wonders if the person who owns this small herd lives close, if he can ask. He wants to name her Dandelion. He hopes that's her name. It’s probably not. He wipes his hand on his jeans absently. The white spots on the lower half of the cow’s face are yellow with pollen. 

Martin brings back a backpack full of files. Jon goes through them in a day and they help so much, he feels like he can finally breathe. After he’s done with them he finds Martin in the kitchen making tea and spins him around by the shoulders on an impulse and kisses him hard. 

His surprise melts into eager reprocication as recognition flickers in his mind. Jon hears it – no, _feels_ it – by accident. It startles him to his core.

“Martin,” he says, pulling away from the kiss just enough to speak, “I’m trying really hard to not, y’know, see –”

“It’s fine,” Martin says, impatient. He’s already pulling Jon back into the kiss.

Jon slams him against the wall. Martin feels hungry in his arms, and he’s trying so hard to not know anything he wouldn’t know normally, without help, but he feels like they’re bleeding into each other, and Martin gasps just as a rush of raw desperation and want goes through Jon. 

He pulls back – “Was that you?”

Jon struggles to catch his breath. “I think so. Sorry.”

Martin just pulls him back in, and then Jon’s the one getting slammed against a wall, his head colliding with wood, Martin grasping his hair with both hands, pushing his body flush against his, solid and warm and present. 

And God his mouth is so warm and soft and perfect, those teeth, all human, and Jon thinks about the vague concept of crying for a second, and then he’s filling to the brim with Martin buzzing loudly, going, _I love you, I love you, I love you_.

–

They eat stale croissants for dinner three days in a row. Martin doesn’t quite feed them to Jon but he does pull pieces out of one of the croissants and hands them to him. Jon puts the pieces into his mouth obediently, struggling to keep up with the flow of pastry, flakes getting on his shirt sleeves and on the table. The whole time Martin takes slow, hungry bites out of his croissant-turned-cheese-sandwich, and Jon looks at him longingly. It’s like he misses liking eating. The taste of food when he still liked eating. The comfort. Familiarity.

Jon does the dishes after. Not much in the way of dishes, really, just the knife Martin used to slice open his croissant. For a second he thinks about the knife in relation to his eyes. It’s a long second, but eventually it passes. He doesn’t have any statements left, but he thinks he can make it until Basira can mail the next ones. He’s okay. He’s safe, whatever that means. For now at least.

Martin watches him from the living room half of the living space, something strange in his eyes. Like he can tell. Like he’s the one reading people’s minds now. Jon looks at him and offers him a smile. Martin smiles back. He’s playing with the lake rocks that have come to live on the coffee table, rattling some inside his fist. Jon has a sudden thought of being inside his fist like that. Like a pile of rocks. Held and rattled.

He drags himself to the couch. He doesn’t quite sit in Martin’s lap, but he sits close enough that it’s effectively the same. Martin doesn’t say anything. Jon doesn’t say anything either. A few beats pass in silence, and then Martin sighs, reaches his hand up, and pulls Jon against his chest by his neck. 

Sweet Martin. Strong Martin. Love. Love. Love. He thinks it as loud as he can. Martin doesn’t pick it up from the air. Jon turns his head up towards his face and strains to kiss his neck. He can’t see Martin’s face well from this angle but he can almost feel his mouth stretch into a smile.

Maybe tomorrow they’ll go out and see the same cows again. Maybe Martin will go with him to inquire about the name of the one with the heart shaped spot. Maybe they’ll be allowed to pet the calf that always seems to be in the middle of the field with its mother. He pictures Martin in overalls and tall wellies and smiles.

And it’s - maybe. Maybe tomorrow he’ll tell Martin. Or maybe he knows already.

**Author's Note:**

> _And you threw all your luggage out onto the water  
>  And I tore the shirt away from my back  
> The cold came on with a new found intensity and you pressed your warm body against me  
> And I loved you so much it was making me sick  
> I took your hips in my hands and I threw you down to the new found, rich brown, deep, wet ground  
> Had a vision of you burning on my mind_
> 
> im on tumblr at blqckwoods.tumblr.com! come tell me that everyone and their mother has written jonmartin looking at cows.


End file.
